The hierarchy of living complexity
I fully agree with your statement:” i do believe that an understanding
can arise of the system in it's whole operation without the need to divide
it into a description of interacting subparts”
This is precisely what the concept of a minimal complexity
is about. It is the amount of complexity necessary to sustain the life of
a living entity like a bacterium. Currently we cannot explain how this minimal
complexity sustains life, and the dissection of the bacterium will not clarify
it. So we define a variable called WOB (Wisdom of the Body) which “knows”
how to sustain the life of a bacterium. WOB has two meanings: 1. The process
set and 2. The faculty to optimally control the set. WOB is also an open
system.
We may now define a hierarchy of complexities in all manifestations of life:
WOB(i+1) = Sum[WOB(i)].
For instance Bio-film[WOB] = Sum of all
bacterial WOBs
In embryogenesis WOB(0) is the zygote and WOB(n) is the newborn. This iteration
illustrates a basic property of life. As the complexity of a living process
emerges each of its stages is equipped with a WOB. In other words each stage
is an emerging WOB.
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